Proper sanitization is important as a disease control measure in a variety of industries. The CDC estimates that about 1.7 million infections occur each year with one fourth attributable because of improper hand sanitization compliance in industries such as healthcare, hospitals, food service, restaurants, schools, and childcare, and at mass gatherings and conventions. Hand hygiene compliance management is important in hospitals given the risk of hospital-acquired infections. Reinforcement and improvement of hand hygiene standards is especially important where health caregivers may touch multiple patients each day with various contagions, potentially serving as a vector for the transmittance of multiple contagions. This is of particular concern because many hospitals lack hand hygiene compliance auditing tools, such as hand hygiene ledgers or records. In such hospitals there may be no accountability or reinforcement devices for healthcare providers. Interaction with patients is necessary to some who may be immunosuppressed, or in patient recovery rooms where infection may thrive. Katherine Ellingson, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at the CDC, has highlighted hand hygiene issues based on researched and identification of healthcare-associated infection risks through improper hand hygiene compliance. Infections from hand hygiene non-compliance still occur despite training initiatives, signage, and the convenient placement of handwashing sinks and sanitization stations in the industries where hand hygiene is important. This costs hospitals, institutions, governments, and society tens of billions of dollars yearly in preventable healthcare costs and early deaths.
A major concern in the healthcare industry, and of particular importance to hospitals, are readmission rates. Under Medicare and other legislation, government regulations incentivize hospitals to reduce readmissions by placing the cost burden of readmissions on the attending medical facility. From a compliance and prevention manager's perspective, providing convenient and easier methods and systems, or devices, to perform a routine treatment task generally means healthcare providers will perform the task more frequently. One objective of the invention is to enhance and change poor hand hygiene behavior to reduce infections and thereby reduce readmission rates.
Presently, many treatment substances, e.g., hand and body lotions, sunscreen protection, mosquito repellent, hand sanitizer, and liquid soaps, are typically sold in squeeze containers in order to dispense and apply a treatment substance. In the past other products such as sunscreen have been sold in bottles with a hand pump, or as a powder in a tube with a brush, or as an aerosol in a pressurized can with a nozzle. However, these containers and dispensers are not necessarily convenient. The bottles and containers are frequently dark or colorful and do not show clearly when the substance is used up, sometimes making a user feel reluctant to use the container because it may not contain enough treatment substance. Moreover, the containers are easy to lose or forget, e.g., in a car, cabinet, locker, or accidentally left somewhere in public. This can cause a user such as a healthcare provider, patient, or other user, to not adhere or apply the desired or needed treatment substance or take prescribed medication. For example, a user could misplace a sunscreen, pill or sanitizer bottle and then would forgo using sunscreen, or forgo taking medication, or sanitizing hands. Consequently, there is a need for a wearable treatment substance dispenser that clearly indicates to a wearer the level of treatment substance remaining. Further, there is a need to separate the container of treatment substance with a wearable dispenser allowing for replacement cartridges of treatment substance.
Besides hand hygiene non-compliance, two other important mechanisms help to drive up patient readmission rates: non-compliance with treatments or medication after patients are released, and bed sores. Frequently, patients who are released from a hospital will fail to properly take their medication. This occurs for a number of reasons but memory, confusion, reading comprehension, and improper recall of instructions are main causes, e.g., an individual will simply forgot to take the medication, will misremember taking it, will remember to take it, but then forget and take it again, will forget the instructions, will not be able to read and understand the instructions, or will not be able to recall what a pharmacist or doctor told them about how to take the medication. Similarly, with bed sores an important cause is that patients are not aware of how long they have been placing pressure at a certain angle on vulnerable parts of the skin or body. For example, patients may not be able to feel that a bed sore is developing because of the physiological mechanism of how bed sores develop, or because of a certain condition. Bed sores are extremely serious when and if they develop, and are very difficult to treat causing frequent and costly readmissions including surgeries, skin and tissue grafts, and generally increased care requirements from hospital caregivers. Bed sores may even result in amputations and death. Consequently, there is a need to inform patients or individuals having important medical instructions to follow them after they are released from a hospital or clinic or are otherwise no longer being cared for.